SCV’s Herta makes history
IndyCar: 18-year-old youngest to win pole position on Saturday in Wisconsin
Santa Clarita native and NTT IndyCar Series rookie Colton Herta made history again on Saturday when he became the youngest driver in IndyCar history to win pole position.
The rookie laid down a time of 1 minute, 42.992 seconds at an average speed of 140.306 mph, just edging out veteran Alexander Rossi by two-tenths of a second at Road America’s permanent 4.014-mile road course in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.
“I’m so happy with how the day went,” Herta told the media following qualifying. “The No. 88 GESS Capstone Honda guys are all working so hard and well together.
“The car was fast. This is the first time that we’ve had that edge in qualifying to go for pole and I loved it. We really took advantage of it and got the best starting position for tomorrow. Now we’ll
keep checking the weather and make changes accordingly so we can have a great race.”
The 19-year, 83-day-old rookie beat out previous record-holder Graham Rahal, who was more than a year older than Herta when he set the record in 2008 at St. Petersburg. Herta also became the youngest driver to ever win a race when he took the checkered flag at the INDYCAR Classic at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas in March.
Rossi got revenge in the race, however, passing Herta on the first lap and then proceeding to dominate the entire race with a 28-second margin of victory.
Herta’s day would be marred by questionable tire strategy and a crew error on the first pit stop that left him battling his way back from the middle of the pack.
Herta got a good run in the final 15 laps, working his way up to fourth, but the softer Firestone
red tires degraded too fast at the end of the race leaving Herta fighting to keep the car on track and allowing Rahal, Scott Dixon, Felix Rosenqvist and James Hichcliffe, all on the harder Firestone blacks, to pass him. Herta finished the race in eighth.
“(It was a) tough day at Road America today.” He told the media following the race. “We struggled on the Firestone red tires, which caused us to lose a few spots at the end of the race. But overall, the No. 88 GESS RNG Biogas Capstone Honda guys were great all weekend. The car was so quick, it was a lot of fun to drive it. Now we shift focus to street course racing in Toronto.”
The Honda Indy Toronto will begin on Friday, July 12, and end on Sunday, July 14.